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TWO 



SERMONS 



^pril, ISSa. 



1 



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TWO SERMONS 




APPMT^, 1865. 



S:s^ 



These discourses, printed at the request of persons who heard 
them, may serve as a memento of that wide contrast of intense feel- 
ing,— that wondrous blending of a nation's exultation and grief,— 
which will render the month of April, 1865, the most memorable of 



.4 KEY TO OUli JOY. 



SERMON 



DELIVERED IN 



THE TIUNITAIUAN CHURCH, 






S F^ ST D ^ Y, 



April 13, 1865, 



BY VV llEEI^OOK CliAlC^ 



I'UIBljISiilGD 13 Y REQUEST. 



E. ANTHONY &. SONS, riilNTEKS, C7 UNION STREET. 

1865. 



s EE M o :n . 



I Samuel xi. 12, 13, 1-1, 15. " And the people said unto Samuel, 
Who is he that said, Shall Saul reign over us? Bring the men, that we 
may put them to death. And Saul said, There shall not a man be put 
to death this day : for to-day the Lord hatli wrought salvation in Israel. 
Then said Samuel to the people, Come, and let us go to Gilgal, and 
renew the kingdom there. And all the people went to Gilgal; and 
there they made Saul king before the Lord in Gilgal : and there they 
sacrificed sacrifices of peace-oflerings before the Lord ; and there Saul 
and all the men of Israel rejoiced greatly." 

At the period to which these words refer, they were 
having about such a time in the land of Canaan as we are 
having in our own country now. It was the clearing oil' 
after a storm. The person regularly appointed to admin- 
ister the government had been rejected by a portion of the 
people. Providence had employed the scourge of war to 
bring them to terms. A victorious battle produced a 
political reaction iu the hearts of the disaffected. An 
impassioned loyalty, in the most sudden manner, as if by a 
miracle, seized possession of every heart. They repaired 
to Gilgal and " renewed the kingdom," amid religious sacri- 
fices, and fervent public rejoicings. It is our privilege to 
participate in a similar scene on a far larger scale. Wo 
had beard of such things in history,— the wild frenzy of 



delight iu Philadelpliia when, iu the dark night, the watch- 
man's cry rang through the silent streets, announcing that 
Cornwallis had surrendered ; the bell-ringing and bonfires 
and cannonades in England, at the tidings that Wellington 
had conquered Bonaparte at Waterloo ; the midnight rapture 
iu Boston, iu 1816, when it became known that a vessel had 
just arrived from Europe announcing the declaration of 
peace. Our hearts had bounded at the reading of those 
things ; but who supposed that we should live to see such a 
day, — that in our life-time and land there would occur one of 
the greatest wars of the world, and that our ears would be 
thrilled with the rumor of its mighty and awful battles, and 
that it would be ours to raise the shout of triumph at the 
tidings of the last battle, crowning our soldiers with victory, 
and our nation with deliverance ? It is a cup that can be 
partaken of only once or twice in a century. It is a great 
privilege to have been permitted to live until the ushering 
in of such a day. 

What are the proper feelings to be cherished by us to-day, 
in view of these circumstances ? 

It should be a day of thanksgiving. The things essential 
to a thanksgiving are that one be joyful, and that he 
acknowledge God as the author of his joy. We have 
abundant occasion at this time for the fulfilment of both of 
these conditions. We cannot expect ever to have so much 
public occasion for it again. It is a time when devout joy 
should fill the heart of every man and woman and child in 
the land. There are some who appear to feel that they and 
their chosen associates have a monopoly of the joy, and are 
entitled to turn it all into a secular and partisan channel ; 
and when they meet persons not of their own clique, there 
is a look in their eye, or an utterance from their lips, which 



says, What! are you glad too? what right have you to 
participate in this gladness? Such feelings evince very 
great narrowness and illiberality of feeling, and ignorance 
of human nature. Some of the most joyful hearts to-day 
arc those whom the Pharisees of loyalty and patriotism 
would shut out of their synagogue ; it is the very fervor 
of their yearning for such a day of peace as this, which has 
given them hesitancy in approving of some of the measures 
which, under the good providence of God, have ripened into 
this auspicious consummation ; and he is a cur of the kennel, 
and a foul fly in the ointment, who mars the jubilant harmony 
of the hour by obtruding such objections. Let the men of 
every shade of opinion, in oblivion of the past, come freely 
forward upon the broad national platform, and join us in 
making the welkin ring with exultant shouts. Who can 
have it in his heart to think of private feuds ? All who 
occupy that platform hold out to every one accepting it the 
hand of welcome. 

Let us be thankful that the havoc of property and the 
disturbance of peaceful industry have been checked, that 
exorbitant prices arc to be reduced, and that those who 
have been pinched with want are to obtain relief, that the 
currency will return to a settled basis, and that trade will 
flow once more in its wonted channels. Let us be thankful 
that the outbursts of folly and irrational passion and blind 
and lawless force, incident to so fierce a commotion, are to 
give place once more to the calm sway of order and reason. 
Let us be thankful that the period of carnage and bloodshed 
is at an end ; that the cause for which some of our loved 
ones have laid down their lives has triumphed, — filling, it 
may be, their glorified spirits with a rapturous gratitude 
deeper than ours, — and that our soldiers who survive can 



desist from their weary marches, their anxious vigils, their 
frosty bivouacs, their perilous charges, their tedious and 
painful confinements in prisons and hospitals, and laying 
aside, let us hope, forever, their burdensome military equip- 
ments, can come joyfully home from the war, and bid a final 
adieu to the hardships and temptations of the encampment 
and the campaign. Let us, above all, be thankful that the 
dreaded gulf of dubious strife and impenetrable contingency, 
which we shuddered and trembled at the thought of enter- 
ing, has been safely surmounted, and that the secret blessings 
which Providence had deposited in those transcendent 
allotments are about to be unfolded. We have been 
afflicted; alleviations and consolations have been mingled 
with the cup. Let us be grateful. How we dreaded this 
ordeal, and begged that, if possible, it might pass from us ! 
How we felt willing to endure almost everything, and to 
forego almost everything, sooner than encounter it I With 
what unutterable forebodings our illustrious patriots from 
Washington downwards have regarded it, and importunately 
entreated the people to put far from them, at whatever 
sacrifice, the unknown, awful woe 1 We can hear even yet 
the tones of our great New England statesman declaring, 
with horror, that beyond the confines of so terrible a strife 
he. dared not look, and that even his far-seeing eyes could 
not penetrate the veil, and imploring that not in his life-time 
there might dawn so ominous a day. Our progress through 
this struggle has been like that of a ship careering fog- 
wrapped through a midnight storm, like that of the prophet's 
steed rushing against the drawn sword of the angel, like 
that of the Israelites going down into the sea. But a tran- 
quil morning has dawned upon the stormy midnight. The 
angel has sheathed his threatening sword. The sea is 



crossed. Let Miriam and her companions go forth "with 
timbrels and with dances, and shout, " Sing ye to the Lord, 
for he hath triumphed gloriously." Let the nation proclaim, 
" The Lord is my strength and song, and he is become my 
salvation : he is my God, and I will prepare him a habita- 
tion ; my father's God, and I will exalt him. The Lord is 
a man of war : the Lord is his name. Thy right hand, 
Lord, is become glorious in power. The enemy said, I will 
pursue, I will overtake, I will divide the spoil ; my lust 
shall be satisfied upon them ; I will draw my sword, mine 
hand shall destroy them. Thou didst blow with thy wind, 
the sea covered them; they sank as lead in the mighty 
waters. Who is like unto thee, Lord, among the gods ? 
who is like thee, glorious in holiness, fearful in praises, doing 
wonders ? Thou in thy mercy hast led forth the people 
which thou hast redeemed : thou hast guided them in thy 
strength unto thy holy habitation. Thou shalt bring them 
in, and plant them in the mountain of thine inheritance, in 
the place, Lord, which thou hast made for thee to dwell 
in ; in the sanctuary, Lord, which thy hands have estab- 
lished. The Lord shall reign for ever and ever." 

You perceive, by the way, my friends, how in the multifa- 
rious past literature of the world, it is only the Bible which 
rises above the key-note of our present experience, and 
goes beypnd our powers of heartfelt utterance in this hour. 
Its divine origin and infinite fulness are evinced in the fact 
that it sounds all the utmost depths of human feeling, and 
reaches out beyond the farthest scope of thought or emotion 
possible to man. Of no other literary production can this 
fact be affirmed ; and it proves that tlie Bible can have come 
only from the hand which fashioned the soul of man. 

For what was the task set before our nation at the out- 



10 



break of the rebellion ? Why, it was to confound all the 
parallels of history, to confute the predictions of all intelli- 
gent observers throughout the whole world, to do what 
never had been done, and what all men had united in saying 
never could be done. It was to introduce unheard of and 
startling precedents. It was to achieve the impracticable. 
George Washington did not believe that we could do this 
thing. Daniel Webster did not believe it. James Buchanan 
did not believe it. Abraham Lincoln did not believe 
it. William H. Seward did not believe it. Neither the 
Charleston nor the Chicago convention of 1860 believed it. 
William Lloyd Garrison did not believe it. Wendell Phil- 
lips did not believe it. Henry Ward Beecher did not 
believe it. They hoped, each that the country would be 
preserved by being led in some other path ; but none dared 
to hope that it could be saved by walking in this path. 
Some, like Webster, hoped to maintain the union by tolerat- 
ing slavery. Others, like Phillips, hoped to destroy slavery 
by dissolving the union. Others, like Beecher and Greeley, 
hoped that slavery would die an easy death, without sub- 
jecting the land to this overwhelming convulsion. But no 
man was so progressive as to conceive of reaching the issue 
through precisely the channel in which we have passed. It 
would have been foolhardy in the extreme to have done so. 
Had you asked any man four years ago, Can we raise an 
army of millions, can we incur a debt of billions, can our 
land endure the tread of those countless hosts, and become 
wet with the gore of those thousands of the slain on a hun- 
dred battle-fields, can we bear up under deferred hope 
through campaign after campaign, can the loyal states bring 
the liaughty, imperious South, with its immense agricultural 
resources, and its inextricable commercial affiliations, into 



11 



humble submissiou within four years ; can our country in its 
raw youth, nursed in the habitudes of peace, become in so 
brief a period the mightiest military power of all time ; — 
can all this come about, and the lithe, elastic, scarcely visible 
strands of our civil fabric not part under the strain ? — had 
you put this question to any man, he would have deemed 
you mad in asking it. And yet Providence has put this 
question, and has answered it, answered it in our favor, if 
we may believe the sight of our eyes, if we are not dream- 
ing; but the joy is so great that it seems as if we must be 
indeed in a dream. We rise from our couches where we 
have slumbered in darkness, and look forth from the misty 
mountain-top, and, if we are not deceived, we see the clear, 
blue firmament, and the bright sun shining through. On the 
wings of the blessed zephyrs there is borne to our weary, 
aching ears that gracious word peace. And now is it not 
beyond question that every one in the land, save those 
whom the blow of victory has crushed, is glad, is thankful, 
is religiously grateful before God for these wonderful mer- 
cies ? Can there be any selfish, jealous, malignant monopoly 
of this jubilee ? For any lack of past agreement, shall one 
despoil a neighbor of his meed of joy on this occasion ? 
He who has it in his heart to do this is unworthy of living 
in such an hour. 

The more we inspect and analyze these events, the more 
we feel that only the eye of God has looked through them 
from the beginning to tlie end, and that only the hand of 
God has impelled us onward in our strange, and thrilling, 
and now auspicious career. 

There are two or three points in the history of these 
years which specially illustrate this position. 

One is the fact that so many elements of destructive 



12 



power were allowed to consolidate themselves into the 
movement for a disruption of the government. That black 
cloud was permitted to gather up all the lightning in the 
atmosphere, and hurl it in overwhelming bolts at our insti- 
tutions, that the experiment of assailing them might bo 
thoroughly tried once for all, and that all our citizens in 
every section of the nation, and the whole world, might be 
convinced of the hopelessness of attempting to overthrow 
them. Accordingly it was providentially arranged that the 
project of secession should have something better to rest 
upon than a mere spirit of ambitious insurgency and selfish 
misrule. There was much sincerity, and well-meaning 
though misguided patriotism, and earnest though deluded 
conscientiousness, mingled with that most deplorable and 
infatuated movement. A large portion of the rebels hon- 
estly thought themselves to be in the right ,: they regarded 
themselves as threatened with oppression ; they supposed 
that the time had come for setting up a new government; 
they misapprehended, and had done so from the beginning, 
the bearing of their original act in ratifying the constitution, 
and the nature of their obligations resulting from that act. 
They felt that God approved of what they were doing. 
This augmented their moral strength, and intensified their 
determination. And now that the danger is past, we cannot 
regret it. The country having withstood the shock, is all 
the stronger for the momentum of this blow. It is a good 
thing, a boon from Providence, that all the morbid humors 
lurking in the body politic were brought together, and led 
to discharge themselves from this fearful imposthume, the 
threatening deadliness of which, now that it has healed, 
confirms all the more the soundness of our constitution. 
The hand of Providence can be seen in the hampering of 



13 



the government during the incipient stages of the rebellion, 
and in preventing it from discerning or asserting its powers 
of self-defence. Surprise has been often expressed, and 
bitter censure has been inflicted upon the administration 
which preceded that of President Lincoln for not summarily 
crushing secession at its birth. If Buchanan had possessed 
the spirit of Jackson, it is often affirmed, we should have 
been spared this war. But the circumstances of the case 
were totally unprecedented. Those in which Jackson was 
placed furnish no analogy to them. To demand of the party 
then retiring from power a forcible encounter with the South, 
is to exact of them a magnanimity greater than human. It 
would have involved a surrender of all their cherished 
political principles. It was their avowed belief that the 
drawing of the sword would bring on all the consequences 
which have since resulted. They dared not do it. They 
apprehended that it would prove fatal. Their successors 
shared with them this apprehension. They were ready to 
concede that the government could not survive such a con- 
flict as that through which we have passed : but they had no 
idea that such a conflict was in store for us. They did not 
believe that a forcible attempt to subdue the South would 
be followed by the costly, protracted, bloody and terrible 
struggle which has actually been experienced. They entered 
on their path not dreaming whither it would lead them. 
This mistake of theirs emboldened them to strike the blow. 
They had no faith in the resources, or the military strength, 
of the South. Hence they were not afraid to encounter 
them. And God carried them through, contrary to the 
expectations which they would themselves have cherished, 
had they foreseen the real formidableness of their adversary. 
A pilot cannot be expected to push a ship on in her course, 
when he knows that just before her there is a bar across 



14 



the channel. Another pilot, ignoring the existence of the 
bar, may press her forward. And the crew should adore 
God, no doubt, if, at the nick of time, He sends a mighty 
gale and an unwonted surge which sweeps the keel safely 
over. Now the point which I adduce as calling for our 
religious gratitude is, not merely, or chiefly, the fact that 
we have gone harmlessly over the bar, but that we were led 
into precisely that channel. It promotes the well-being of 
the nation, for all coming time, that the rebellion was not 
suppressed in its incipient stages, that it ran its full length, 
that the experiment of breaking up this government was 
thoroughly tried, and carried out to its utmost length, under 
the most favorable auspices. Had those who made the 
attempt failed at the outset, they would some time or other 
probably have tried it again. But now they will never try 
this dreadful experiment again. It is well therefore that 
God made it a moral impossibility for the administration to 
which I have referred to adopt any other course than that 
which was adopted. I am aware that we are not likely all 
to agree in regard to the historical premises leading to this 
conclusion ; but we shall kindly pardon in one another this 
difference ; and granting the premises, I know we shall all 
agree in the conclusion. If it was true that political con- 
sistency and moral conviction held the President in 1 8G0 
to the course which he pursued, we must all confess, in view 
of what has at last transpired, that this has been overruled 
for the good of the nation. We were driven in consequence 
to take a desperate leap over a horrid chasm ; but now tliat 
we are over, we are the better off for it. As Dr. Watts 

tells us, 

'' Timorous mortals start aucl shrink " 

from such a chasm, 

Aud fear to launcli away " ; 



15 



but they feel it to bo a good transition when tlieir feet are 
securely planted on the other shore. 

Then notice tlie providential trap which was set, if it is 
not irreverent to use the expression, to entice the loyal 
states into a unanimous enthusiasm in favor of maintaining 
tlve union. Six years ago, the union was at a discount in the 
popular estimation of the North. It was entangled in the 
question of slavery, and hence lay under a stigma. One 
who would be popular had to be very silent, if he felt much 
on that subject. The more progressive among us did not 
hesitate to scout the union, and to style our national banner 
"a flaunting lie." Those who were more cautious, contented 
themselves with ridiculing the fear of dissolution as prepos- 
terous. Now there was infinite adroitness in the providence, 
so salutary too, which managed the moves in the game in 
such a way that the avowed support of the union, instead 
of devolving merely upon a party, became a universal enthu- 
siasm, and linked itself in cordial league with the very 
ideas wliicli had previously stood opposed to it. You 
remember how all that was brought about. There is no 
time now for describing the process. But certainly it was 
a very wonderful, as well as beneficent development. Vast 
and inestimable results hinged upon it. 

But just as a trap was providentially set to revive the 
enthusiasm of anti-slavery men in favor of the union, a trap 
was also set to allure, — what shall I call them? — I wisli 
not to use terms having any invidious bearing cither way ; 
I am simply reviewing the history, in a kindly spirit, to 
gather up its religious lesson;^ well, call them unionists, 
conservatives, Democrats, or what you will, — to allure these 
into active cooperation in military interference with the 
rebellious movements of the South. You remember this 



16 



chapter of events also. I need not enlarge upon it. The 
mere suggestion will recall it all. The early phase of the 
war on the part of the North was a conservative one. 
Fremont was relieved of his command in Missouri. Care 
was taken not to interfere with certain kinds of property 
among the rebels in our military procedures. Wendell 
Phillips was incensed. This posture of affairs occasioned, 
in some quarters, severe animadversion. I allude to it for 
the sake of making this simple comment. Remember, this 
is my only comment upon it one way or the other, whether 
in praise or dispraise. It enlarged the area of support for 
the government. It drew into the ranks of supporters of 
the government a multitude of men, and a multitude of 
editors, and a multitude of military recruits, who would not 
otherwise have stood in those ranks. And when subse- 
quently the operations assumed a new phase, these men 
were already fixed ; they could not go back ; the momentum 
had been imparted ; a more national and a less partisan 
aspect had been secured for the administration. This ap- 
proximate nationalizing of the war is a very strange and 
intricate providential effect, and has powerfully contributed 
to the successful result. It confounded the expectations of 
the seceders. And it will puzzle future historians, as it 
already puzzles Europeans, to account for it. 

While passing by so many, I must point to one other 
thing in which the hand of God is seen. It is the sweeping 
march of our arms, which has at last conquered a multitude 
of strongholds, placed us in the capital of the enemy, and 
forced his best general and his chief army to surrender. 
What could be more surprising, or unlooked for, than the 
train of events which has brought this about ? Our confi- 



17 



dence has been put from time to time in a long succession 
of men who have taken the lead, — Scott, McDowell, and 
the many who have followed. But two years ago who was 
reposing his trust in Grant, in Sherman, or in Sheridan ? 
It is astonishing how, from an unconspicuous rising, these 
luminaries have shot upwards into the zenith, filling the fir- 
mament with their resplendence, and winning imperishable re- 
nown. There have also been many times when we seemed 
to be upon the eve of taking Richmond. But I think no one 
at a distance from it had any thought a week before last 
Saturday morning that we were winning instant possession 
of it. That steady tread of a conquering host which began 
to startle the ears of the world at Vicksburg, that wonder- 
ful march which stretched eastward and then northward, 
beginning at Atlanta, the fiery chivalry of Sheridan, the clos- 
ing in of the armies around the devoted capital like the coil 
of a mighty serpent, and then the stately, courteous pageant 
of the final surrender, — these swift-rushing and inconceiv- 
able events which seem like a romance or a dream, instil 
this lesson ; " It is the Lord's doing, it is marvellous in our 
eyes ; be still and know that I am God ; Thine is the king- 
dom, and the power, and the glory." 

We may be sure that within these inscrutable allotments 
are deposited fruits of blessing, the nature of which we may 
or may not be able to conceive, but which will hereafter de- 
velop themselves. God must have some good purpose in 
store for us, or he would not have enabled the nation to sur- 
vive this storm. There is abundant reason then why we 
should rejoice, and why our rejoicing should assume the form 
of religious gratitude and thanksgiving. 

One cannot help feeling that this whole tissue of events 
is a historic mystery, a providential riddle, whose only true 



18 



solution lies in the consideration ■which seems to have es- 
caped us all, that certain schemes of man run in accordance 
with, and others stand in antagonism to the eternal purposes 
of God. The former he indorses, and crowns with success ; 
the latter he baffles, and brings to naught. All human 
schemes have to abide this criterion. The issue in many 
instances cannot be foreseen. While the case is pending, 
it is man's duty in lowly resignation to await the result, 
striving in all things to conform his activity to the Divine 
will, and humbly imploring celestial guidance. 

This duty of thanksgiving need not interrupt our consist- 
ent compliance with the request of the Governor to observe 
this day as a season of contrition and humiliation. The 
gifts which make us glad arc but promised as yet ; they arc 
by no means fully in our possession. We must see to it lest 
our transgressions frustrate their fruition, and cause us to 
forfeit them. And there are yet other favors needed 
by us which we should solicit with prayer and fasting. 
It is a wonder that God can exercise forbearance towards 
so guilty a people, and load us with benefits. Our 
iniquities provoke his judgments. The community is filled 
with unbelief, and disobedience to God's laws, with neg- 
lect of his ordinances, and with a temper in a multitude 
of respects diverse from the spirit of Christ. Of those for 
whom so much has been done, much will be required, and 
we may expect to be held to a very strict account. As in- 
dividuals, as families, as a church and congregation, as a city 
and as a nation, we stand arraigned at the celestial bar for 
punishment, unless we avert it by a timely repentance. 
Let our humiliation be mixed with a large ingredient of 
charity. This period of general congratulation should sub- 
serve for us the purpose of the ancient " truce of God," in 



19 



\7hicli all private grudges and differences were forgiven and 
forgotten. It is no time now for acrimonious judgments 
and resentments. Let us make it the era of good feeling. 
Those who have violated the laws will be taken in charge 
as felons by the magistrates. If their case call for clemen- 
cy, this prerogative is intrusted to the executive power. 
We private citizens are not called upon to give advice either 
in the way of condemnation or extenuation. As to those 
who have not violated the laws, Christ bids us, Love one 
another as brethren, and judge not that ye be not judged, 
for with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged; and 
with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you 
again. It is an ill function for one to fulfil in society, to 
break down another's influence and reputation, and to wear 
deeper and deeper the furrows of animosity which sever old 
bonds of friendship, and divide neighbor from neighbor. 
Bowing in penitential sorrow before the throne of our di- 
vine Benefactor and Deliverer, let us forgive and love one 
another, and sec to it that peace and good will prevail be- 
tween the various parties, and classes, and households, which 
subdivide the people in church and state. Let him who 
will not abide by this good rule come under the ban of so- 
cial outlawry, as a traitor against the common weal. 

We have occasion to exercise a prudent and pious fore- 
thought as to our personal interests in the future. Shall 
the fields yield us their increase in the summer approach- 
ing ? Shall we and our families flourish as to health, and 
as to our vocations ? Shall we attain reconciliation with 
God, eternal life, growth in grace, and when called hence, a 
peaceful immortality ? Shall wo lay to heart the solemn 
teachings of daily events, and thus shall religion be revered 



20 



in the church and the congregation ? These are points of 
great consequence to us. They are not included in national 
benefits. They are to bo sought in humble supplication. 
There is occasion then for fasting as well as for thanksgiv- 
ing, for prayer as well as praise, for solicitude as well as 
for exultation. 

Our hearts should likewise be devoutly burdened for the 
national future. It will task the utmost wisdom of our 
chieftains, our magistrates, and our law-givers. Our port is 
in sight, but we have not yet entered it. Brute force and 
the stress of coercion will never secure harmony and pros- 
perity for this great people. If our affairs are to flourish 
again, it must be through the working of God's spirit upon 
the popular heart far and wide, even as the hand of God has 
wrought in behalf of our armies. The work of reconstruct- 
ing our civil fabric is one of enormous arduousness and per- 
plexity. It will bring into requisition the largest capacities 
of those to whom it is intrusted. They will have to trav- 
erse unexplored and pathless fields of deepest intricacy. 
Let us flood them with holy and importunate intercessions 
that they may be guided aright, may be replenished with pa- 
tience, forbearance, magnanimity, firmness, and wisdom, and 
that their strength may be according to their day. All that 
was good or inevitable in the old bonds that united the sev- 
eral states of the republic, may they induce the people har- 
moniously to retain; whatever improvements those bonds 
admit of, may we be led harmoniously to adopt ; and may 
the bitter lessons of the past divest our national councils 
forever of foolhardiness, of bickerings, of sectional jealousy, 
of reciprocal contempt, and of unrighteousness and injus- 
tice. God grant that our rapturous dream of peace and in» 



21 



coming glory may not mock our hopes, but may speedily 
ripen into fruition. May the days in store not prove bank- 
rupt to our demands, but redeem their fair promise to every 
class of our inhabitants. Every good citizen, whatever his 
partisan alliances, will cordially conform to tlie novel exi- 
gencies of the situation, will relinquish his grasp upon all 
that was evil in the past, and welcome all that is good in 
the future ,* . will, at the same time, cling tenaciously to all 
that was good in the old, and resist the encroachments of 
all that is specious and baleful in the new. But how to 
come into harmonious agreement as to applying this general 
rule in its details! — ay, therein we need the outpouring of 
grace and wisdom upon our hearts from on high. On this 
point let all who know the way to the throne of grace con- 
centrate their supplications with fasting and tears. And let 
the Christian motto of the nation be " Not by might, nor by 
power, but by my spirit, saith the Lord." The prayer and 
holy living of some poor obscure person, mighty in faith and 
in nothing besides, may do more for this land in the critical 
months before us, than the largest outlays of the resources 
of statesmanship. 

We are passing forth to a future which shall try every 
man's temper and every man's work, in our national matters, 
of what sort it is. The gold, the silver, the precious stones, 
the wood, the hay, the stubble, in our feelings, in our utter- 
ances, in our doings, — this imminent fiery future shall try it 
all, and make it all manifest. In meek humility let us com- 
mit ourselves to God's mercy, and calmly await the ordeal. 
Then afterwards, in the impending hour when heart and 
flesh shall fail us, may Jesus the Mediator be our hiding 
place from the tempest, and our portion forever. 



isroTE . 



The following paragraph is appended, — an extract from the sermon 
preached at the same place, on Sunday, April 16th : 

The patriot, whether actuated by Christianity, or by hu- 
man prudence and wisdom, — widle he will iise his influence to 
'promote the enforcing and the execution of the laws, while he will 
crave that every malefactor may be condemned, and punished ac- 
cording to his deserts, and by the due processes of justice, — 
will never harbor a spirit of private malice ; will never tako 
the law out of the hands of the magistrate, and arrogate to 
himself the divinely forbidden prerogative of unauthorized 
judgment ; will never hurl the bolt of irresponsible popular 
violence against a fallen foe ; will never give way to a wild 
and wanton ferocity ; will never lay one man's guilt at other 
men's doors; will never make his own wrongs, though 
they burn his heart, an obstacle to peace ; will never dis- 
honor the memory of the dead President, whose last days 
were spent in healing the dreadful feud in our land, by re- 
viving that feud; will always remember that a restored 
union — painful as the self-denial involved in that condition 
may be — can only rest on broadly diffused forbearance and 
conciliation. A forest of gibbets can never yield fruits of 
national prosperity. Acres on which bleach the bones of 
their former inhabitants slain by revengeful violence, will be 
no good soil for liberty to root itself in, or for philanthropy 



24 



and the gospel to rear to themselves homes upon withal. 
The private citizen who, in this bitter hour of grief, cannot 
bow his head in meek humiliation, leaving his cause and his 
wrongs in the hands of God and the magistrate, but must 
needs foment anew the expiring discord to assuage his ire, 
knows not what manner of spirit he is of, nor whither his 
path tends. For, in his impotent, suicidal frenzy, he is 
tearing open yawning, fiery hell-gulfs, that will swallow up 
himself and us all. 



SERMON 



FRUITS OF OUR BEREAVEMENT. 



DELIVERED IN 



THE TRINITARIAN CIIIIRCII, 



Sunday, April 23d, 1865, 



BY WTIF.EI^OOK OR A TO 



FTJIBLISKTHD 71Y R-TT! Q TITR ST. 



Wciji BcUfavU, mass, 

v.. ANTHONY & SONS, rEINTEKS, C7 UNION STREET, 

1865. 



s E E M o isr 



Genesis, l, 10, 11. — "And they came to tlie threshing-floor of Atad, 
which is beyond Jordan, and there they mourned with a great and very 
sore lamentation. And when tlie inhabitants of the land saw the 
mourning in the floor of Atad, they said. This is a grievous mourning 
to the Egyptians." 

Exodus, xni, 19.—" And Moses took the bones of Joseph with liim ; 
for he had straitly sworn the cliildren of Israel, saying, God will surely 
visit you ; and ye shall carry up my bones away hence with you." 

LuitE, u, 35. — "Yea, a sword shall pierce through thy own soul also." 

It was indeed true, as we agreed a week ago, that we 
were in a dream. We were smitten down and stunned by 
the terrible blow. And all our utterances, in those first 
hours of our dismay, partook of the incoherency of som- 
nambulism. On Wednesday, the day of the funeral solem- 
nities, our slumbers, instead of being dispelled, had grown 
deeper and more bewildering than ever. Our minds were 
taken up with the strange, superficial aspects of our condi- 
tion, and we but dimly discerned them after all. The 
hurried confusion of those swift, wild days, the midnight 
alarm, the nocturnal vigils, the constant thrill of the nerves, 
and the weight upon the brain, the draped buildings, and 
the silent, grotesque, melancholy streets, — these absorbed 
our thoughts, and precluded reflection upon profounder 
elements of the distressing theme. I am not sure that wo 



have attained a thorough spiritual calm even j^et ; but, to a 
certain extent, the leaven has had opportunity to fulfil its 
work in our spirits j and we are therefore better prepared 
than we then were to do what we did not then attempt, — 
that is, investigate the full nature of our calamity, and form 
an estimate of our loss. To accomplish this, let us humbly 
attempt to ask and answer the question, What results may 
we hope that the death of the President Abraham Lincoln 
will produce in the hearts of the people ? 

The first result that I shall mention is that the fragrant 
memory of his name will abide with them. That is a good 
thing. You know how the soil is fertilized by the falling 
leaves of autumn. You know how opulent cities gather 
into themselves libraries, picture-galleries, museums of art, 
master-pieces, tlie fruits of ripe culture, and how these 
precious acquisitions enrich old nations. So a people are 
cnriclied by their traditions. The nations of antiquity, and 
of Europe, are illumined with the lustre of their heroes and 
their sages. The Chinese carry this principle to so base an 
extreme that they even worship the shades of their ances- 
tors. Now think how fair and great this name will be in 
the popular traditions ! His apparent dimensions were 
large, even while he was living, and under the disadvantage 
of a close inspection. The eyes of his contemporaries 
were powerfully arrested by that career as it passed before 
their view, — the sturdy Kentucky lad, reared in puritan 
homeliness and simplicity, of stalwart frame, coping ener- 
getically with the perils of the wilderness, amassing knowl- 
edge, filled to the brim with a noble honesty and generosity, 
becoming the peer of the ablest and the best upon the 
official stage in the State adopted as his residence, nominated 
to the highest post in the gift of the people, triumphantly 



elected, winning their hearts all along the route in that 
memorable journey to Washington by his modest demeanor 
and by invoking their prayers, assuming the reins of gov- 
ernment at that most baffling juncture, persistently struggling 
to beat back the waves of treason, and to uphold the 
government, with quiet hopefulness amid the discourage- 
ments which pertained to the opening period of the war, 
selecting the time of it and then executing the masterly 
stroke of cmancipa(tion, in such a way as to ingraft that 
measure into the affections, and to secure for it the support 
of an invincible majority of his constituents, steadily holding 
on his way over the rough billows of costly expenditure, of 
public indebtedness, and of the military drafts that threat- 
ened to engulf him, ever winning fresh favor by the very 
procedures which seemed the most menacing and impracti- 
cable, emerging from the storm of a four-years' civil war, 
prosecuted on a scale of unprecedented magnitude, under a 
halo of resplendent victories, and surrounded by a group of 
indomitable chieftains whom he had gathered to his aid, the 
curtain of life closes upon him engaged in solving the 
problems of peace and reconstruction in a spirit of wide- 
reaching sagacity and magnanimity which elicited the enthu- 
siastic devotion of both friends and foes. Tliis shining 
sketch is only the unvarnished outline of the overt deeds 
which he wrought before the gaze of his countrymen. 
Concealed within this rich screen, there was a precious 
domain of the private life and of the heart, a merry wit, a 
genial glow, a racy common sense, tender domestic and 
friendly affections, lowly Christian devotion, a compassion 
gentle as that of woman to relieve distress and befriend 
the desolate. We, excluded from that inner view, and 
dwelling at a distance, knew, some of us, nothing at all of 



this for a long time ; but though hidden from our gaze, the 
jewel was there. Such was the man, as he confronted the 
eyes of his fellows. But then contemplate the marvellous 
providence pertaining to that life, which, " as the shining 
light," shone "more and more unto the perfect day." What 
had not God in store for that pious dame's farmer-boy, that 
Mississippi boatman and pioneer, that honest, unpretending 
swain, that western schoolmaster, that Springfield lawyer 
journeying to Washington to assume the chief magistracy ? 
What in store ? Why, the noblest place on earth, the 
highest official position, fraught with the grandest responsi- 
bilities ever known to mortals. At the hour of his death 
he occupied the loftiest pinnacle of honor ever reached by 
man. Joined to this official eminence, there was spiritual 
greatness. This leader of such a nation in its supreme 
crisis, foremost in the files of time, was likewise, through 
the mercy of God, invested with a heritage, as we have 
reason to believe, in the celestial kingdom. Faith linked 
his spirit to Christ, and secured to him a throne in the 
heavens. Last of all, death set a regal crown upon him. 
Death etherealizes the aspect of all good men, even though 
they be common men, much more extraordinary men. They 
look sweet and holy through the mist. Our love and rever- 
ence for them increase. Death subdues every rude linea- 
ment, and gives the character a softer aspect. IIow doubly 
true is this in the present instance ! To die in such a 
service, to reap these bitter wages for such deeds, to have 
such a career thus cruelly quenched at the moment when 
the whole world stood ready to accord him their homage, 
how this disarms even the most hostile alienation, and draws 
out every heart in reverent fondness for him ! As in the 
case of Samson, his death achieved issues not less important 



than those which so great a life achieved. The very shed- 
ding of his blood by the murderous hand of that base 
dastard was a libation poured out upon the altar of his 
country. It electrified the popular heart, filled it with an 
intenser and loftier enthusiasm, lifted us all to a more exalted 
plane of feeling and purpose, welded men's souls together 
in a more unanimous fervor, and imparted to our determina- 
tion the earnestness of eternity. Such was President Lin- 
coln. Through his death this great and resplendent image, 
like a brilliant star, hangs fixed in the national retrospect, 
for the people to gaze at forever. This is one of the results 
of it. 

In the second place, this event cements us into an earnest 
and outspoken agreement in favor of the extirpation of 
slavery. By the election in November, it was virtually decided 
that the question of the continuance or discontinuance of 
that most objectionable relation should be transferred from 
tlie domain of rights reserved to the States, and incorpor- 
ated among the prerogatives of the general government. 
The people gave in their verdict that the general govern- 
ment should be sustained in exercising its authority to 
uproot and destroy slavery. Yet, even then, there remained 
considerable diversity of opinion as to the best time and 
method for insisting upon this most desirable consummation. 
The longing for it lurked in well-nigh every heart. The 
prayer that it might occur went up from well-nigh every lip. 
iiut there were, here and there, patriotic and philanthropic 
and loyal citizens, who, from a sincere and well-meaniDg 
regard for the permanent welfare of the nation, craved that 
this task might be left to devolve upon those who have 
claimed the constitutional control of it. We can thus wait 
no longer. The pressure of the late President's mighty 



memory is sweeping away this blemish upon our institutions, 
as with the besom of destruction. The air is too dense 
with his transcendent influence for any contravening temper 
to pervade it. The climate is too hot with the people's 
wrath, in view of this terrible assassination, for opposition 
to President Lincoln's great favorite measure to live in it. 
The tide of fierce and righteous indignation against every- 
thing pertaining to the spirit and purpose of that execrable 
malefactor, combining with the current of public sentiment 
which had already set in, bids fair to carry off from the land 
the last slave-bond, on its overwhelming flood. The Presi- 
dent's most foul and bloody murder puts a seal upon the 
fact that wo are a nation of emancipators. So great is the 
momentum which the popular devotion to that departed 
rulor imparts to the official proceedings of his successor ! 
So intense and magnificent is the inspiration which has been, 
let us hope, divinely communicated to the general heart ! 

In the third place, we gain, in connection with this event, 
an insight into the burdensome cares and perplexing re- 
searches allotted to a chief magistrate, and to other eminent 
ofiicials. The door of the executive mansion stands ajar 
for a moment, and we catch a glimpse of what goes on 
within. The scene may well elicit our forbearance and 
commiseration. How harassing a position ! What a 
strain upon the nerves ! What a weight upon the heart ! 
What a pressure to be withstood ! What a vortex in which 
to retain one's foothold ! It must be as much as one in that 
position can do to arrive at a decision upon so many points. 
Yet the position furnishes peculiar advantages for deciding. 
How utterly incompetent must the private citizen, at a 
distance, be to revise those conclusions ! And yet you will 
find many a man assuming to be competent for the discharge 







of the duties both of his own vocation and of the President's. 
He knows, forsooth, just how the country should be gov- 
erned, how every appointment should be filled, and what 
measures should be adopted ! Let the spectacle inculcate 
upon us a Jesson of greater humility. 

A fourth public result of this most deplorable event is 
that we are all brought to feel the force of the saying in the 
scriptures, If one member suflfer, all the members suffer 
with it. It shows us that the governor and the governed 
sustain a very intimate mutual relation, so that when the 
former is struck down, a burden of damage and woe falls, 
with crushing weight, upon the latter. At the first tidings 
men merely stood agape with affrighted wonder and horror. 
The earliest emotion excited was pity for those who stood 
in a sufficiently near relation to the dreadful transaction for 
it to expend its force upon them. Remote beholders were 
paralyzed by the dreadful spectacle, but seemed beyond the 
reach of its immediate influence. Now, however, we are 
finding that the devastating blight expands in ever-widening 
circles ; and not a solitary citizen in the farthest corner of 
the land escapes it. Every one cries out, I, too, am hurt, 
my heart is pierced ; and the deadly pang reaches to the 
inmost core. Amid our weeping for others, we are called 
to weep for ourselves. That bell-toll was not merely the 
signal that one in an eminent station had passed away, and 
the summons to a funereal pageant j it was also the knell of 
our own repose, the requiem of our peaceful felicity, the 
warning note telling us that trouble had crossed our own 
thresholds. It came to intoxicate neighborhoods with fury, 
to disturb cherished relations, to rupture old friendships, to 
set a man at variance with his own household, and to plunge 
the iron of grief and bitterness deeply into many a soul. 



10 



That distant ground-swell, seen in the offing, has come rolling 
in upon us, and who can tell what bark may not yet be 
ingulfed by it? We cry out to God, Lord, save us, we 
perish ; and to our fellow-men to take pity upon us. The 
public heart is irritated. The land is vexed. A mighty 
nation is enraged, and each several community clamors for 
a victim ; not merely the real culprit, for the whole earth 
would rejoice to see him punished ; but, in lieu of him, for 
any scapegoat on whom the stroke due to him may be 
inflicted. So, by a grievous discipline, we learn the lesson 
what it is to have the chief pillar in the national edifice 
torn down. In this, as in every instance, the blessing 
brightens as it takes its flight. Some may have thought that 
the pillar did them no good, or stood in their way ; but now 
they find how sad it is to have the roof-tree come crashing 
in upon their heads. We experience a fulfilment of the 
prediction, "A sword shall pierce through thy own soul 
also." We are taught how great are our obligations, as the 
members of a political body to its head. 

A fifth result should be great personal searchings of h^art, 
on the part of every conscientious man, to ascertain what 
manner of spirit he is of, in his demeanor towards the gov- 
ernment which protects him. It was said here a few days 
ago, — yet without any thought that the prediction would so 
soon be verified, — We are passing forth to a future which 
shall try every man's work and every man's temper, in our 
national matters, of what sort it is. The gold, the silver 
the precious stones, the wood, the hay, the stubble, in our 
feelings, in our utterances, in our doings, — this imminent 
fiery future shall try it all, and make it all manifest. In 
meek humility let us commit ourselves to God's mercy, and 
calmly await the ordeal. — This time of searching and sifting 



11 



has already begun to be fulfilled. Are we ready to meet 
the emergency ? Can we sincerely avouch our patriotism 
under the searching gaze of our countrymen, and before high 
Heaven ? "When the great attack was first made upon our 
government four years ago, we all felt it to be a privilege to 
banish past, minor diiferences, and to come out very openly 
with an announcement of our purpose of fealty. Now let 
us do the same thing again. Who regrets that in the days 
of trepidation and dismay, when the stormy years, now 
safely past, were a future all unknown, he gave a pledge, 
and has ever since before God faithfully kept it, that he 
would stand by the late President amid the perils which sur- 
rounded him ? Are we sorry that we gave that pledge, and 
that by God's grace we have kept it ? Let us do the same 
by his successor. Providence, indeed, seems to have antici- 
pated us in this intention, and to have environed him, at the 
outset of his official career, with the panoply of a wonder- 
fully unanimous cordiality and approval. 

There are not a few of us who can never be politicians, 
in the technical sense. "We join no organizations. "Wc 
acknowledge no partisan designations. We march under 
no other than the national banner. We incur, without a 
murmur, the obloquy and the misrepresentation to which 
this course subjects us; for such a course is the tribute 
exacted of us by our vocation, by our training, by our habits 
of life. It is not in us to be politicians ; and the attempt 
to be such would detract from our Christian effectiveness in 
our chosen lines of service. But we are patriots. Wc arc 
loyal men. Our hearts and our voices are with the govern- 
ment in every hour of its extremity. And as, in the days of 
the taking of Fort Sumter, we said to President Lincoln, 
and to those enlisted with him in supporting the government, 



12 



so now we say to President Johnson and to his adherents, 
We are with you ; count us in on your side ; our help is not of 
much account, but such as it is, you shall have it. Keep the 
ship of state headed as President Lincoln had headed her, 
when his patriotic grasp fell from the helm, and all that we 
can do, we will do, to assist you in sailing her. And let no 
man of such a spirit give way to despair. God will help 
us, and all shall yet be well. When President Taylor died, 
men's hearts failed them for fear. On that occasion Henry 
Clay happened to be visiting Newport. A friend, calling on 
him, uttered the observation. The nation cannot stand up 
under this blow. You are wrong, rejoined Mr. Clay ; Presi- 
dent Taylor was a great man, and his death inflicts a great 
loss ; but no man's life is indispensable to the prosperity of 
this government. Let us partake of that trustful spirit 
evinced by Henry Clay. Let us feel that underneath us are 
the everlasting arms. 

These expressions of patriotism may be adequate to sub- 
serve our earthly purpose. But I must needs go a little 
further. I am not only a loyal man, but an ultraist in my 
loyalty. I cannot content myself with that flippant meed 
of loyalty which seeks the favor of men, feeds itself fat 
with the garbage of selfish ambition, prates in the dialect 
of popular and invidious catch-words, and parades itself 
ostentatiously abroad to make a fair show in the flesh. Let 
us have something deeper than this, — a loyalty so true and 
profound and free from all admixture of sinful passion that 
it can abide the gaze of the heart-searching God ; for we 
must all appear at the judgment-seat of Christ ; and in such 
an hour as we think not the Son of man cometh. 

This brings us to consider, finally, the highest result of 
this great national bereavement, — that of imbuing our pop- 



13 



ular activity with an intense spirit of religion, and of mak- 
ing us solemn and earnest in all our doings, as becomes men 
living in the light of eternity. President Lincoln set us this 
example. I wish that it had been possible to spread before 
the people, as they assembled on Wednesday, the accumu- 
lated evidences of this which were adduced, by those inti- 
mately acquainted with him, at the funeral solemnities in 
Washington. He was a man of trust, he was a man of 
prayer, he leaned on God, he felt his accountability, he 
looked forward to the recompense of eternal reward. He 
felt that all these things which we behold are to be dissolved, 
and he chose for his inheritance a better country. This is 
the testimony of those who knew him. Perhaps you were 
aware of it, but I was not aware, until seeing it recorded in 
a religious newspaper of the current week, that he said on 
one occasion. When I left Springfield for Washington and 
asked good people to pray for me, I was not a Christian; 
when I lost my dear boy, the sharpest sorrow of my life, I 
was not a Christian ; but when I stood upon the field at 
Gettysburg and looked upon the graves of our brave men 
who had fallen for their country, I gave my heart to Christ, 
and I do love Jesus. The life speaks, then, even more elo- 
quently than the death speaks. 

You all have very quick feelings now as to the national 
honor. You will not tolerate upon your neighbor the 
slightest taint of treason. Are you equally loyal to God ? 
Are you equally jealous for the maintenance of his govern- 
ment ? Are you equally sensitive to purge yourself from 
the charge of rebelling against his laws ? If any man have 
not the spirit of Christ, he is none of his. What if God 
should say to us as we say to traitors, I will no longer dwell 
with them ; how desolate would be our sanctuaries 1 May 



14 



he not already have almost said it ? Let us entreat him to 
return to us. Christians; think of your covenant obligations ! 
Think of the forsaken prayer-meeting! Sinners, think of 
the fall in Eden, think of the cross of Christ, think of the 
day of judgment ! May the grand result of the shedding of 
the blood of the sainted Chief Magistrate be a gracious 
outpouring of the spirit of God from on high upon our 
rulers, upon our whole people, upon ourselves who are here 
met, this people, this church, these households, upon our 
every heart ! Be ye also ready ! 



AH 



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